DNA check leads to rape charge in city

For months, sex crimes detectives were unable to come up with a suspect after a 14-year-old girl was forcibly raped March 13 in an alley in the 6000 block of Michigan Avenue.

This week came the news that is becoming more and more commonplace in law enforcement: A suspect's name emerged through a match of DNA evidence with the national DNA database known as CODIS.

Detectives immediately went out and arrested their suspect - Scott Solovic - and on Thursday he was charged with rape, kidnapping and two counts of sodomy in connection with the March incident. Solovic has served two prison terms for having sex with underage girls.

The girl was grabbed by the arm by a man she did not know and was taken to a nearby alley and sexually assaulted, police said.

Solovic, 34, is a registered sex offender who was released from a Missouri prison in May 2004 after serving his entire five-year sentence after pleading guilty on three counts each of statutory rape and statutory sodomy in 1999. That case involved a 15-year-old girl in Solovic's neighborhood, which was then in Maplewood, authorities said.

Solovic now lives in the 5200 block of Louisiana Avenue.

In 1996, Solovic pleaded guilty of statutory sodomy involving an underage girl in Affton and was sentenced to a year in prison.